‘He Brought Witch Doctors Into Our Home’: Kenyan Woman Recounts 13 Years of Abuse, Fear and Rituals

What began as friendship, love and the promise of building a family would, according to Paulette Wanjiru, descend into 13 years of violence, financial turmoil, secrecy and frightening rituals that she says eventually made her afraid of the man she had married.

In an extraordinary interview with TUKO Talks, Wanjiru, an interior designer, recounts a marriage in which she says physical abuse became so routine that she stopped recognising it as exceptional.

But among the most disturbing chapters of her account is her claim that her former husband began bringing people she describes as witch doctors into their home, some from as far as Tanzania, in pursuit of wealth and help with a court case.

She alleges that rituals were performed inside their house and business premises, while some visits to cemeteries took place under the cover of darkness.

“They would leave at night and go to the cemetery,” Wanjiru recalled.

Her story, however, is about much more than alleged witchcraft.

Behind the sensational details lies an account of domestic violence, economic control and the gradual normalisation of fear.

A friendship that became a family

Wanjiru says she moved to Eldoret after completing a hairdressing course and eventually secured work with a furniture business.

It was through work that she became close to the man who would later become her husband. He was new to Eldoret and she helped him navigate the town, eventually referring customers to the curtain business he established.

Their friendship developed into a relationship and, by around the end of 2013, they were living together and had welcomed their first child.

Initially, she remembers being cared for.

Then things changed.

When their baby was about two months old, she says her husband began returning home in the morning. When she questioned him, she alleges, he slapped her.

He apologised.

She forgave him.

It would not be the last time.

Wanjiru says violence eventually became so frequent that she described the beatings during the interview as “normal” — a description that prompted the interviewer to question what she meant.

Her explanation was chilling: they happened repeatedly.

She also recounts being pushed out of a moving vehicle during one confrontation.

Yet she stayed.

Part of the reason, she says, came from advice she had internalised growing up: what happened inside a marriage should remain there.

That silence would become one of the defining features of her story.

Business, money and a court case

Even as the marriage deteriorated, Wanjiru was building businesses.

She left employment, bought a Toyota Vitz and ventured into supplying construction materials and producing gypsum products. She later expanded into curtains and opened another shop in Lodwar.

The couple also bought land and began building a home.

But money increasingly became a source of conflict.

Wanjiru traces a major turning point to a dispute involving approximately Sh800,000 that her former husband's friend allegedly gave him.

According to her account, the friend later demanded his money and eventually pursued the dispute in court.

As the case intensified, Wanjiru says her husband began searching for unconventional ways to overcome his problems.

At first, people presented as spiritual or religious figures visited.

She recalls people praying in their home, boiling coloured nails and slaughtering chickens. Money from the business, she says, increasingly went towards these activities.

She grew suspicious.

“I told him that I didn't trust his pastor,” she recalled.

Eventually, according to Wanjiru, her husband travelled to parts of eastern Kenya and later Tanzania seeking people he believed could help him overcome the court case and become wealthy.

‘He came back with a witch doctor’

One trip to Tanzania marked a new stage.

Wanjiru says her husband returned home accompanied by a man introduced to her as a “doctor”.

She initially cooked for their guest and continued with her normal responsibilities.

But after listening to their conversations, she became convinced that the visitor was a witch doctor.

At night, she alleges, the two performed rituals involving fire and eggs. She says the visitor sometimes struck her husband while discussions revolved around the court case and becoming wealthy.

Then Wanjiru was told she needed to participate.

According to her account, the man said whatever they were attempting would not work because husband and wife were not “on the same page”.

Her husband subsequently bought red and black cloth.

Wanjiru says she was instructed to remove her clothes and wrap herself in one of the pieces of cloth. She refused.

She alleges that her husband responded by taking her into their bedroom and assaulting her before they returned to the ritual.

She eventually agreed to change into a dress.

What followed, according to her testimony, became increasingly disturbing.

Chicks, a razor blade and nighttime cemetery visits

Wanjiru says she was handed two chicks during one nighttime ritual and instructed to strike them against the ground.

When she resisted or failed to carry out the instruction as demanded, she says her husband slapped her in front of the alleged witch doctor.

The visitor then cut her face with a razor blade, examined her palm and instructed her to hand over money. Wanjiru says she eventually found Sh200 and gave it to him.

She was then given an oily substance to rub on her hands and told she would become rich.

Wanjiru says she did not believe what she was being told and silently prayed while complying with some instructions.

She further alleges that her husband and the visitor would leave the house at night for cemeteries.

She did not accompany them and therefore could not independently describe what happened there. Asked during the interview what they were doing, she said she believed they were seeking some form of “awakening”.

Her account should be understood as her recollection of events rather than independent proof that the rituals had supernatural effects.

But the fear she describes was real to her.

Strange objects around the house

After the Tanzanian visitor left, Wanjiru says unusual practices continued.

She recalls finding objects near where the family slept that the children nicknamed “daddy's wazungu”. She described them as figurines resembling frogs.

One day, she poured boiling water over them.

She says her husband beat her severely afterwards.

At their shop, Wanjiru says she encountered other people whom she believed were performing rituals at night.

Her husband, she alleges, kept a substance in a container covered with what appeared to be skin and claimed applying it would attract customers and wealth.

Wanjiru challenged the logic.

She was already attracting loyal customers without using anything similar.

For her, business success came from work.

For him, according to her account, the search for wealth increasingly involved something else.

‘I couldn't call it a home’

The rituals were only one part of Wanjiru's ordeal.

Physical violence continued.

At one point, she says her mother repeatedly intervened in disputes and tried to persuade her husband to stop assaulting her.

Eventually, her mother gave her Sh100,000 and encouraged her to use the money to leave.

Wanjiru took the money.

But she stayed.

Her decision illustrates one of the most difficult realities surrounding abusive relationships: recognising danger does not necessarily mean someone is immediately able or psychologically ready to leave.

Wanjiru says she had invested years of her life, money, businesses, children and hope into the relationship.

She kept believing things might improve.

Even after the court case that had consumed so much of their attention was eventually concluded in her husband's favour, she says the problems at home continued.

By then, she was exhausted.

Alcohol became an escape

Unable to talk openly about what was happening, Wanjiru says she turned to alcohol.

A bottle became a regular item in her bag.

Drinking, she says, initially appeared to numb what she was experiencing.

“When I was beaten I wouldn't even feel,” she recalled.

She began staying away from home after violent episodes and sank deeper into drinking, while still concealing much of what was happening from friends.

Then Covid-19 arrived.

Income disappeared.

Wanjiru says her husband sold her car and disappeared without giving her any of the proceeds. She alleges that he spent the money on alcohol rather than supporting their businesses or family.

By this point, the marriage she had spent years trying to protect had become something she could no longer recognise as home.

The story beneath the witchcraft

It would be easy for Wanjiru's interview to be reduced to its most sensational elements: witch doctors, graveyards, strange objects and rituals performed at night.

But doing so risks missing the deeper story.

Her testimony describes how abuse can become normalised gradually.

The first slap was followed by an apology.

Then came more violence.

Then secrecy.

Then economic dependence and control.

Then fear.

And throughout much of it, Wanjiru says she remained silent because she believed problems inside a marriage should stay inside the marriage.

Her account also shows how financial ambition and desperation can make people vulnerable to those promising supernatural solutions to ordinary problems.

Wanjiru says considerable amounts of money generated by their businesses disappeared into visits, payments and rituals supposedly intended to produce wealth or influence the outcome of a court dispute.

The irony was difficult to miss: money earned through successful businesses was being spent in pursuit of promises of even greater wealth.

Today, Wanjiru identifies herself as an interior designer working with curtains, office blinds and wallpaper.

Her decision to tell the story publicly also breaks the rule she once lived by — that what happens inside a home must remain there.

Perhaps that is the most consequential part of her testimony.

For 13 years, according to Wanjiru, silence helped keep her inside a relationship characterised by violence, fear and experiences she struggled to understand.

Now she is speaking.

And beneath all the extraordinary claims about what happened after dark, her warning is strikingly ordinary: abuse should never become something a person learns to call normal.

Category: Features